Life is Art
by Avalon1632
Summary: Picasso once said that all you can imagine is real. When Vanessa and Ryan Caulfield take Chloe and Max out to visit the Chase Space for a gallery exhibition for the works of Mark Jefferson, Chloe and Max learn just how well that saying holds. Inspired by the RPG-Maker game Ib. If you're a horror or puzzle game fan, I thoroughly recommend it.
1. Enter the Gallery

Chapter I: Enter the Gallery (Chloe)

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

This one is based on one of my favourite horror games ever, Ib. It's the story of a kid who goes to a gallery one day and gets pulled into an alternate horror universe filled with the works of an artist called Guertana. If you haven't played it and you're into horror games, I HIGHLY recommend you do. It's a little RPG maker thing, but it's really, really well done. It's a game with multiple endings too, so #ReplayValue. :D

This story is set pre-Max Leaving, so Max and Chloe are like, tweenagers. I have literally no memory of being a tweenager, and I don't spend any time around children, so writing them as that age was never gonna happen well, hence why Chloe speaks nothing like a kid half the time. Also, since this is pre-Rachel, she doesn't say 'hella', and I've had to stop myself writing it and edit it out after writing it so many times in this chapter.

Oh, and a final question. If you had a time machine, about the size of an Iphone, that could take you 30,000 years into the past or the future, where would you go? I've got a time travel story planned, and I'm curious if y'all would like to see anything particular from it.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

"Uargh." I groan. "Are we fucking there yet?"

"Chloe! Language!" Max's mom glares at me from the front passenger seat.

I shrug sheepishly. "Sorry Mrs C, but are we?"

"I have no idea. Ryan?"

Ryan shrugs. "Dunno, maybe. Where are we going again?"

I snort, and Vanessa rolls her eyes. "The couch tonight, if you don't answer my question already."

"Yes ma'am. Judging by the truly terrible modern art over there," He points to a weird, metallic statue that looks kind of like if a slinky had a seriously bad day and got one of those grinning dog statues jammed up it's- "we're here. Galleries have weird modern art outside, right?"

Vanessa flashes him (Flashes? Ew, wrong word, wrong word!)... _gives_ him a withering look, then grins back at us. "He's a detective, you know!"

Mrs C was the only adult I knew who could use sarcasm as well as me.

Ryan parks up outside the gallery and we all climb (Max), fall (me), gracefully exit (Momma C), and just sorta stagger (Ryan) out of the car and up to the door. I can almost feel Max _vibrating_ next to me she's so excited. I don't even think before I put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. It's just one of the things we do.

When Mr and Mrs C finally rock up to the door with us, we all head in. Max gasps as she takes in the frankly unimpressive inside. It's all metal and marble and modernist shit that I really don't get. The only thing that broke up the operating room vibe was a big, fancy-looking old portrait of a tall, thin blonde girl standing next to a fireplace. From the look on her face, I was pretty sure art bored her as much as it bored me.

Max's folks walk over to the main desk and ask for some leaflets and guidebooks and the pretentious douche in a suit behind it hands them a little book with a condescending sneer and an "Enjoy your visit." that sounds like he wants us to do literally anything else. Like go away and stop getting our _interest_ all over his precious artwork.

Asshole.

Max finally speaks up after her parents take too long thinking over the guidebook (Like, seriously, how long does it take to pick a direction? We're gonna see all this shit anyway, so it's not like it matters.) and begs them to let her go check out Jefferson's exhibition already.

They share a look, a smile, and shrug. "Sure, Max. Just be careful!" They yell after her as she dashes off for the stairs. Mrs C grins at me. "I don't even have to ask if you'll keep an eye on her, do I?"

I shrug, "Always do, Mrs C.".

She smiles. "Good. Now, try not to 'cause too much noise. We don't want to get kicked out of the gallery before Max has seen everything."

I snort, "Yes, Mrs C." and head off after Max, hands in my pockets.

* * *

"Oh my dog," Max chirps. "Have you seen this picture?" I look over to see her staring at this... wait. What the fuck is that? I tilt my head, trying to see... Huh. Okay. It's an upside down dude.

Or maybe a Llama?

Nope. I think it's a bird.

I know I'm not an artist or whatever, but I know art is supposed to represent shit. What the fuck is an upside down bird-llama dude supposed to represent?

But, Max is beaming at it, and me, expecting an answer, so I grin. "Super cool, dude."

She grins back. "Isn't it? It shows-"

I try listen, I really do, but... I kinda tune out. When Max gets all photographer, I never have any idea what she's talking about. It's seriously cute though.

I drift off slightly, just grinning at her excited face, until she pulls me out of it, grabbing my hand with an excitable "Chlo, Chlo, have you seen this one?" She drags me over to a black and white photo of an untidy bedroom with a load of psychedelic swirls over it. She says something about it using photo-warping to make an abstract representation of the chaos of modern life. Or something. Like I said, I don't know shit about this stuff.

"Yeah, I saw it. I totally took that one." I state, face and voice as serious as I could make 'em.

She smirks at me. "You did?" She asks, playing along, like always.

"Yeah." I nod. "I used the ancient florping technique of Brobdingnag to really emphasise the clutter and shit in the picture." I bullshit what I'm pretty sure is a masterful artsy explanation of 'my' amazing photo and Max ooohs and aaahs the whole time. Finally, I throw out my arms and say "And I call it, Max Caulfield."

She blinks. "Chloe, why are you naming the photo after me?"

"'Cause it's a mess, just like you."

She giggles, before dragging me off to yet another weird-ass picture.

Two pictures later, I notice that her enthusiastic babble has stopped. I look around. Max was nowhere in sight. Shit. "Max?!" I yell. "Max!?" People around me start to give me the annoyed asshole eye, but I ignore them as I push through the crowd to find her. "Max? Where the fuck are you?"

She finally calls back "Over here, Chlo!" I push over in the direction of her voice to find her standing, awestruck, off on her own in front of a massive photo of the New York skyline. I take a sec to blink at it in amazement before I storm over to Max and poke her, hard.

She barely flinches. "Have you _seen this,_ Chloe? It's totally amazing!"

I sigh. "Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you, y'know, let me know if you're gonna run off? I thought I was gonna have a fucking heart attack."

She tilts her head at me, big puzzled eyes blinking at me. "Huh? I did, didn't I?"

"Uh. No, dude. You didn't."

"Oh." Her shoulders slump. "Sorry Chlo."

I let it go. "So, what the hell is this thing anyway?"

"It's New York! It's where all these photo's were taken. Isn't it realistic? I think it's printed on aluminum (AN1). Doesn't it just make you wanna reach out and-" Before I can stop her, she puts her hand on the damn photo. "touch it..."

The gallery lights flicker suddenly, then go out completely, and we both whirl. "What was that?"

I snort, "Guess the fancy gallery can't afford the good lights." and it sounds forced, even to me.

We turn back around to look at the photo and... huh. There's a stain on it. Some kinda blue inky stuff. Max frowns at it. "That's developing fluid. Where'd that come from?"

As we're staring at it, it forms into words.

' _Max. Chloe. Go down below. I'll show you something amazing.'_

We both stare at them. "Uh, Max?"

"Yeah, Chlo?"

"You saw that, right? The developing whatever, y'know, moving?"

"Yeah, Chlo."

"Alright. Not crazy then."

"No, Chlo."

"Cool. So, we guess we're going down below?" I snort. "Thought a chick with magic'd be able to get someone to fuck her way easier than this."

Max's face creases in adorable confusion. "What?"

"She wants us to 'go down below', Max." I waggle my eyebrows, grinning when Max finally gets it and blushes. Aww. "Well, come on then. Let's go check 'em out." I take her hand and give her my best reassuring smile, feeling proud when she smiles back.

We creep downstairs through the dark gallery, and all those weird pictures suddenly look so much creepier. Nobody else was around, and the place was almost eerily silent. Max squeaks a little when she sees the empty reception, and I have to swallow a groan of my own. (Heh, rhymes). Max's folks are like my second parents, so it was kinda hard not to freak when I saw that they'd gotten caught in whatever the fuck this was.

I quickly pull Max through into the next room, and we end up looking down onto a top-down photo of a pool of water. There's a boat-side on one edge of the picture, so I guess it's a harbour? There's a railing around it, but someone's taken one part of it down. In the gap, a few footprints go up to it, then suddenly stop at the edge.

"I, uh... I guess we've gotta take the leap?"

Max shrugs, still looking distantly back at the door to the reception. I poke her. "Come on, Maxie. You always said you wanted to try out-dive me, right?" She finally looks at the picture, but she doesn't smile.

Fuck it. Best I got right now.

We walk over to the picture, and follow the footprints until we're standing right at the edge. "Ready?"

Max nods.

I wonder for a sec if indulging the weird horny magic person is the best plan.

Fuck it. Best I got right now.

We jump.

Our feet touch... go through the photo.

Everything goes black.

* * *

I sit up. Huh. Apparently the inside of a harbour painting looks kinda like a corridor from my primary school. Weird. I look around the corridor for Max.

Fuck.

"Max!?" I yell, and my voice echoes off the walls.

I pull myself to my feet and look around. Shit. No Max. So, I picked a direction, and started walking. I walk for what feels like hours, but could've been five minutes, until I come across a table in the middle of the corridor.

It wasn't anything weird, or special, just a table. It had a vase on it, with one blue rose in. The vase had no water in it, but the flower still looked alive. I shrug, and Pick it up.

Huh. Just a flower. I reach out to put it back, and my arm freezes just before I can drop it. My heart beats slower for a few seconds, and my eyes fill with blue light (exact same damn colour as the flower), and I get the idea I should definitely look after the fucking flower. I tuck it into the inside of my jacket. It's not like I can carry it, what if I drop the thing?

I carry on a little bit further until I hit the end of the corridor. There's one small blue door in the end, and I figure Blue Flower, Blue Door, totally telling me where to go. So, I stride over, and I try the door.

Fuck.

Locked.

Max must've gone the other way. Of-fucking-course I go the wrong fucking direction. Damnit Chloe. I turn around and... huh. I'm back where I woke up. Great. Magic-Person is fucking with space. I sigh and, just in case magic-chick is listening, say "Hey, could you help me find Max? It's kinda my job to keep her out of trouble, but this whole going down thing is making it kind of difficult."

Nothing.

Of course.

I start walking. This time (at about the same distance, I guess), I find another vase. This one also had no water. The flower was already gone though. Fuck. Max took one of the weird pain flowers.

I really hope she didn't drop it.

Nope. Not thinking about that. I am gonna find her, and she is gonna be fine.

I keep going, and find a red door at the end of the hall. I quickly run over and try it, grinning when it opens. I thank whatever might be listening that it wasn't locked and hurry through straight into... Damnit. It's just a room, with a really crappy photo of some young chick in a dress on the wall, and an empty table in the middle of it. My good fucking mood disappears immediately. No Max, no way forward.

Fucking goddamnit! I whirl and punch the wall as I hard as I can. How could I have let this shit happen? I let my head fall until its resting on the wall.

"Ahem." A prim little voice coughs from behind me.

I flip around so my back was against the wall. "Who's-"

That's as far as I get. My mouth drops open and I stare at the photo. "Y-you..."

The chick in the picture smiles. "Me, dear?"

I take a deep breath. "You talk?"

She shrugs, like it's no big deal that a fucking photo can talk. "Ever since I was developed."

Since she was... huh, okay. "So, uh..." I rub the back of my neck, feeling totally awkward. "Do you have, like, a name or something?"

"The Lady in Red." She says, waving a hand idly down toward her dress.

Which was red. Obviously. Be kind of a stupid name if it wasn't.

"Oh. Um. Hi, then. I'm Chloe." -and I'm talking to a photo. This day is getting weirder and weirder. "Have you seen my friend Max? Short as shit, cute freckles, wide eyes, camera bag?"

The Lady shakes her head. "I'm afraid not, Chloe. You're the only person I've seen in a very long time."

"Fuck."

"Indeed."

An idea pops into my head. "So, uh, do you know how I get through the other door? The blue one, back" I thumb over my shoulder "that way?"

The Lady nods. "I do. In fact," She moves in her picture, and I grin when I see what she's shown me. Her picture was of a pebbly-beach with some mountainey-hills in the background. The Lady was standing in front of a boat and when she moved I saw that, sitting right on the side of it, was a blue-metal key.

I grin. "Awesome! Can I have the key? Uh, please?"

The Lady shakes her head. "I'm afraid not, Chloe. The key is my charge, and I am loath to part with it."

I blink. I dunno what the last part was, but I'm pretty sure that was a no. Fuck. "Uh, why?"

"It is part of my picture and one cannot compromise one's art for anything." She gives me a haughty sniff and steps back in front of the key.

I start talking again before I even think about what I'm saying. I had no idea where the words were coming from, but they just sorta... came. "I get it, I mean, you are a pretty cool picture," The Lady tilts her head in thanks. "but don't you think you could be better if you stood over there?" I point to the right of her picture, closer to the water. "You'd catch the light way better."

She frowns. "That is not what my artist envisioned, Chloe."

I shrug. "Sure, but that doesn't mean changing is bad. You've heard of editing, right? Plus, you can totally just go back to where you are now if you don't like it."

The Lady nods thoughtfully, and I mentally fistpump. Fuckin' A, I am made of awesome. "You might be right. Very well, let us try. You will let me know if it looks better?"

I nod enthusiastically. "Yeah! My mom always said I had a good eye for this stuff."

The Lady turns and walks over to the side of the room I pointed to. Before she can turn around, I dart forward and grab at the table. When I feel metal in my hand, my grin gets bigger. Yes! I was right!

When I pull it back, the Lady whirls on me, blonde hair flying about like she's in a hurricane, and her eyes go completely red. She screams "THIIIIIIEEEEEFFF!" and it's loud and fucking painful; my ears ring and I swear my eyes start to bleed a bit.

I chance a look back as I reach the doorway and my mouth drops open as I see her sort of... pushing her way out of the picture. It looks like a face trying to push through cellophane, or a baby lamb being born, and she was screaming in anger the entire time.

It was only me being a total badass that stopped me from screaming and running away like a little girl.

Yeah, that was a total lie. I freaked out and ran like hell for the other door the second I saw her. I slammed into it at first, almost bouncing off it I was running so fast. I fumble with the key and try jam it into the lock, swearing when I drop it. If I wasn't so scared, I'd have snorted. I always gave movie actresses shit for doing this whenever they were running away from monsters.

Another scream from behind me (pants-shittingly close behind me) pushes me to be faster, and I grab the key and push it into the lock. I open the door and slam it closed behind me just in ti-

Or not.

The Lady manages to get one of her freakishly long arms jammed into the door and her nails scratch bits out of it I try slam it down on her arm. She screams again and shoves at the door, pushing it open far enough for her to take a fucking swing at me with her arm. Fortunately for my leg, she couldn't see around the door, so her sharp-af nails woosh past my leg. She swings at me a few times, getting more and more fuckin' frantic with each one, but de nada. I'm a goddamn badass and she misses every time.

Okay, so she got way closer to me than I was a fan of more than a couple times, but still.

Badass.

An idea pops into my head and I start slamming my foot down onto her arm, again, and again, and again. Every time, the bitch squeals in pain, and I grin, knowing that I got her. I slam my foot down over her wrist, pinning it underneath the bridge bit of my boot. She wriggles about, but I got bitchin' leg muscles, so she's not going anywhere. I pull back the door and start slamming it on her arm, putting my shoulder into each hit to give it as much force as my weak fourteen-year-old ass could manage.

I lose count by the time the arm starts to crack, and suddenly the entire thing just... snaps and the broken bit of it still attached to her (like, nothing apart from her bicep) disappears back behind the door, and I slam it shut with a grin of victory. Yes! I am totally made out of awesome.

I turn around to find out where the hell I am now.

* * *

"Max!" I rush over and throw my arms around the little hobbit, grinning as she hugs me back. "I was so fucking worried, you little punk. Why the fuck did you run off?"

She buries her face in my shoulder, so I only barely catch her muffled "Language, Chloe!"

I snort. "Yeah, yeah, Mom. Swearing is totally allowed on the SS Pricefield."

She pulls back and eyes me imperiously. "Are you forgetting who's the Captain, first mate Price? It's my decision, and I say no swearing!"

"Welp." I shrug. "Guess it's time for a fuckin' mutiny."

She laughs, and buries her face back in my shoulder. "Where are we, Chlo?"

"I have no fuckin' idea. But the photos here are killer. Did you see the one back in the corridor?"

She nods in recognition. "The Lady in Red! She's one of Jefferson's pictures."

"Yeah. That bitch tried to kill me."

She blinks. "Are you okay?" Her eyes quickly go down and back up me in concern. I grin, pretty sure she's not gonna find the gaping wound she's looking for.

I shrug, like I get attacked by artwork every day. "Sure. I kicked her ass."

She giggles. "Totes you did, Chlo."

"I did!" I say, indignant. Why does no-one ever believe me when I tell them I'm a badass? "Ripped off her arm and everything. Want me to go back and get it? We can use it as, like, a back-scratcher or something."

She shakes her head. "Thanks, but I think I'll pass."

"Ahem." Another prim, little voice comes from behind us, and I whirl, putting Max behind me.

"Who the fuck's there?" I yell, when I don't see anyone who the voice could've belonged to.

The voice "Ahem"s again. "Down here, miss Chloe."

I look down to see an ant, about the size of a hamster, sitting on the floor, staring up at me. It had those weird morpheus glasses perched on the end of its nose (AN: Pince Nez, if you were wondering) and was frowning at me like the librarian from School.

"Um. Hi?"

The ant didn't have eyebrows, but if it did, one of 'em would be up right now. "Hi." It says back.

"So, uh. What's your name?"

"Tony."

Seriously? I grin. "Oh, like an-"

It puts up a claw. "Don't." The glare it gives me over its glasses is almost as cute as when Max tries to put her foot down.

I smirk. "Okay, okay. Sorry dude. So, uh..." I rub the back of my neck again. Not sure which was weirder, talking to a portrait, or an ant. "Are you gonna try kill us or anything?"

The ant(tony)'s shoulders sag. "No. I'm far too sad."

Max leans in. "He's looking for his picture. He hasn't seen it in forever! Isn't that sad, Chloe?"

"Totally. Want us to help you find it, dude?"

The ant shrugs, somehow. Didn't even think that was possible. Pretty sure my biology teacher said ants didn't have shoulders. Eh, whatever. "If you found it, I'd be very grateful."

"Sure thing. And if we find it, will you help us get out of here?"

Tony shrugs again, mutters "Sure", then pulls out a tiny newspaper and ignores us both.

Oookay. So, what now? I take a look around, checking for new ways out. And scary photographic women. De nada for the second, but we had two different ways to go, one to the right of the door (the corridor had a lot of weird animal photos on it. None of an ant though. Shit can't ever be easy, can it?), and the other one straight ahead from it (that way does look kinda... dark...).

I'm about to pick a direction at random when I remember something important. "Oh, shit!" I reach into my coat and pull out the rose. "Max, did you get one of these?"

She nods, pulling hers out of her little messenger camera bag thing. Huh. Apparently they don't need skin contact. Maybe just if you deliberately intend on leaving it? "Yeah! I found it in a vase where we woke up. Isn't it pretty?"

I try smile, but it definitely comes out as a grimace. "Yeah, Max, they are, just... don't drop them."

She frowns. "Why not?"

"It hurts like shit."

"Oh." She says, suddenly looking smaller and far more scared as she blinks down at the rose. "Okay." She puts it back in her bag, way more carefully this time.

"Cool. Now, where do you wanna go?"

Max looks down the dark way, then the animal pictures way, and points to the second one. "That way. The other way looks sort of... creepy."

I shrug. "Wuss. Come on then." I walk off down the corridor before she can say anything, but I know she's got one of her cute affronted little glares all over her face.

But, she skitters after me, her tiny legs having to make two steps for every one I do. Not that it makes any difference to 'ole Maxie. I'm breathing deeper after ten steps, she's not even red-faced. I really need to start exercising or something. If my metabol-wotsit (metabolognese? metaboloney? Huh. Straight to the food, huh Price? Might've got an idea of why I get out of breath so quickly...) ever slows down, I'm so screwed.

My shoulders sag when we hit the end of the corridor and find a giant fucking crack in the floor. I might be able to jump it, but Max definitely can't. Shit. "We can't get over this."

Max shrugs. "So we go the creepy way. It'll be okay."

It wasn't.

The second we stepped into the other corridor it just... oh god. It was so dark, and so, so fucking cold. I knew Max was right next to me, but I just felt so... alone, like everything that made life worth living and shit worth doing was just... gone (AN: #Foreshadowing). I started walking forwards, but my feet felt like they had weights tied to them, and even walking just... wasn't worth it.

My legs started to go numb with the effort of moving and I stumbled, reaching out for the wall.

The wall reached back.

I feel the long, cold fingers just barely touching my skin. I flinch back just in time as nails start to fucking dig into me, getting some seriously badass wounds out of the deal (and a shitload of fuckin' ow), but managing not to get grabbed by a fucking wall. That would just be embarrassing. I didn't wanna think about what'd happen if it got to pull me all the way in. Shit.

Max squeaked as another hand reached out for her, so I yanked her closer to me and started walking again. Somehow, concentrating on protecting her kept the weird cold, empty feeling out, so I managed to get us both all the way to the other end of the corridor.

When we got there, and the cold suddenly disappeared, we both stumbled, ending up in a pile on the floor. Max giggles, shoving at my foot that ended up in her face. "Gross, Chlo!"

I snort and rub my toes over her nose, getting an even bigger giggle out of her. Glad she's doing okay. I still... that feeling was just... No, Price. Don't think about it. I pull myself up and dust myself off, then offer Max two hands and drag her up to her feet. Didn't have to drag far, but still. I take a look around. The place splits off into a T-Junction, one way to our left, the other way to our right. Both ways lead to a green door.

I wave Max over to try the left, and I take the right. Mine was locked, but hers wasn't (she grins delighted back at me when she finds out, and I have to hiss back at her to stop her from immediately opening the damn thing) so I start to walk back when...

Oh shit.

My legs go out from under me when a hand grabs my ankle and yanks. I hit the floor with a thud, and nails dig into my shin. I scream in pain, desperately trying to drag myself away from the hand, but it had a seriously strong grip. So, since flight didn't work, I turn to fight. I start clawing at the arm, trying to get it off me (I'd seen movies. Trying to pry someone's fingers off you never fuckin' works. Always go for the arms. Or the eyes. But since the wall didn't have eyes, I'd have to stick with the arms... Wait... It didn't actually have eyes, did it?), feeling the cold start to sink in under my nails every time I dug into it. I felt something there when I scratched the arm, like I should've got bits of skin or whatever under my nails, but I never got anything under them except the cold.

The wall screamed and shook about like jello in an earthquake, and a couple more arms came out of the wall to grab me. I managed to dodge one, but the other dug into my other shin and tore a huge fucking cut in my leg. I scream in pain again (and probably a shitload of anger. Seriously? I thought art galleries were supposed to be dry and boring bullshit, not whatever this was.) and kick out with my leg as blue light fills my eyes again. It disappears quickly, but it's enough to distract me from kicking.

I don't think I hurt the wall, but the hand loosens its grip just enough for me to slip out and shuffle back on my ass as far away from that fucking corridor as I can. I don't stop until I hit the opposite wall. Max drops down next to me, looking down at my leg in tears "Chloe! Are you okay? Does it hurt? Let me see!" I let her talk for a while as I breath, trying to calm down. I can still hear blood pumping in my ears, and my breaths were coming way faster.

"Max." I try, but she doesn't stop talking in a panic, she doesn't even look up from my leg. I try again. "Max!"

She blinks up at me after that. "Um, sorry. What? It looks so bad, Chloe."

I snort, gritting my teeth against the pain. I try to make it look like a grin, but Max's face doesn't change from worried, so I don't think I succeeded. "I'm fine, Max. Just, help me up. We can't stay here."

She nods reluctantly and moves up to my side, putting my arm over her shoulders. "Okay, on three. I'm gonna lift with the other leg, and use you like a crutch for my other one, okay?" I laugh. "You're short enough for it, so..." I joke, trying to distract her from what I knew was gonna happen. I'd hurt my leg like this before when I fell off my 'board, and it was never fun.

She smiles at me, but she's obviously not convinced. So, fuck it. "One, two... three." I push up with my uninjured leg, whining when pain from my shin shoots up my whole leg. Fuckin' ow was a serious understatement. If I wasn't such a badass, I might've whimpered, but I kept my jaw clenched and we managed to get me straight. "Cool. Okay, okay. You got this, Price. Thanks, Max. Now, let's get outta here." Max wraps a hand around my side to help support me, and I lean on her more than I'd want to, but this was way worse than anything I'd done on my skateboard, so I kinda had to.

We walk very, very carefully and very, very slowly over to the door. Max pushes it open with her other hand and we head into the next room to see a photo of a huge and seriously detailed-looking cat-face in the wall. I peer closer at it and my mouth drops open. It's not a photo. It's... like Max's wall. Shit, what did she call it? Like, a mosaic? Loads of little photos of cats stuck together all seem to just... flow into a bigger cat. It's weird, but totally the coolest thing I've seen so far in this fucked up nightmare.

The eyes open and the huge cat face smiles. "Hello there. Welcome to the Gallery."

* * *

AN1 - Aluminium. Damn Colonials. :)


	2. Flower Power!

Chapter II: Flower Power! (POV) - Time

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, I'm not dead - though it did feel like it for a few weeks there. I am now a University Graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. Thank fuck that shit's over. Currently looking for a years worth of experience supervised by an accredited clinical psychologist so I can do my Ph.D (which is needed to become a Clinical Psychologist in England). I'm looking to have everything I currently have uploaded plus two more at least at the end of act 2 by the end of that year of experience. The LiS fandom will probably have trickled down to just me and NothingYouCanProve by then, but I promised this shit would be finished and it damn well will be.

On a more specific note, this chapter was ridiculously hard, not to write, but to edit. Trying to stop Chloe from saying hella was nigh bloody impossible. It's so integrated into my mental voice for her that it keeps popping up without me thinking about it and I keep mentally growling and muttering cursewords under my breath while I erase it. Also, this is the first deviation from the original game. The cat doesn't talk in the game, but I played Alice: Madness Returns a while back and thought the talking cat might be fun.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

"Woah."

The mosaic preened. "Why thank you. I do so often get compliments on my form." A couple of the cats making up the nose start to groom themselves. "Though it has been awhile since the last visitor came by."

I blinked at the thing. "You're a lot of cats."

"I am indeed." It crooned, "The Maker saw how solitary my kind were, and he ensured that we would never be alone."

"The Maker..?" Max chimed in, joining me in peering curiously at the mosaic cat. It made balancing a little difficult, but I forced myself to lighten up on her a bit. If she wanted to look at the cat, then she'd damn well get to look at the cat. It was fucking hell on my spine though.

"The one who made this place, this nightmare, and all of us within it. The Great Jefferson." The vertical cats eyes blinked, and all the pictures within them blinked together. That was weird.

" _Jefferson_ made you?" Max gawked at the cat(s?) in totally adorable joy. "Wow. Did he do something special to make you, y'know, alive, or did it just happen?"

The cat(s?) shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea. One moment we were not, the next we were, along with everything in the Gallery."

"Wow." Max said again, still gawking.

I grinned. She really was cute when she was all happy.

She shuffled and the movement sent a twinge of pain up my spine. I did try to keep the squeak of pain quiet, but Max heard me and turned her head to look at me. "Chloe, are you- Oh, no! Did I hurt you, I'm sorry, what can I do-"

I cut her off before the babble could really get going. "I'm fine, Maxie. Just my back aching a bit."

"Oh, okay. Do you wanna sit down, then?"

Well, it'd let Maxie keep talkin' to the cat and I could not hurt so much, so... yeah. Good idea. "Sure, Maxie. Just over there'll be okay."

The cat tilts its head and a few of the cats in the pictures slide with the motion, flopping onto the walls. If we could hear them, I'm pretty sure they'd be meowing angrily. "Oh my. You are injured?"

"Yeah," I grunt. "One of the weird fucking wall hand things got me."

"Ah, yes. The Grasping Darknesses. A metaphor for the less sordid parts of civilization, and their ability to drag others into their shadow. Do you have a flower yet?"

I groan. I knew those things were fucking important. "Yeah..."

"May I see it? I do promise I won't try take to it from you."

I shrug and pull the flower out of my bag. It looks pretty much the same, but I think it maybe lost a few petals? I can't really tell. The Cat's eyes narrow and it stares at the flower and it feels like it's looking into my soul. I very quickly decide that I should take the utmost fucking care of this flower possible. Whatever it is, it's linked to me somehow.

"You are indeed hurt, but there is a simple solution."

It pauses, blinking at us. I swallow a growl of frustration and try to be direct without pissing this thing off. Also wondering how the plant told the cat that. Can the plant do that mind talking thing? Telephonesis or whatever? "Okay. What is it?"

"The Warriors of Mercy. You must seek them out and ask their assistance. They are bound to aid you, so the asking will be enough, unlike some of the other portraits around here."

Max frowns and scrunches up her nose. "The Warriors of Mercy? I don't think I know that one."

"One of the Maker's lesser known works, yes. You may recognise them by their garb and their transportation, that of the white metals and red flashing orbs."

I join Max in the confused frown. "Their what? I don't- oh, you mean EMTs."

The Cat shrugs. It's kind of hilarious. All the little cats jump up at once. Fuckin' d'aww. "Perhaps. Return to the Grasping Darknesses and take the other door. You will find the Warriors in the wing there."

Max and I both speak at the same time. "You want us to go back there?", "But the door's locked!"

The Cat shrugs, sending its shoulder-cats up in little Mexican waves again. "It will be no longer. Your way will be clear."

I wave vaguely at my leg. "And you're sure they'll be able to do somethin' with this?"

The cat nods. "Yes."

"Ugh. Okay. I guess we'll go."

"Excellent," The Cat croons. "Then hurry. The Gallery has not had visitors in a very long time, and we will all find you most... enticing."

* * *

"Seriously, I fucking hate this corridor," I mutter, dodging past another shadowy arm trying to make a grab for my ankles. Max just chuckles and shakes her head, keeping her arm wrapped tightly around me.

The other green door was unlocked, just like the cat said, so we push it open and walk right in. This 'wing' of the gallery was just as dark as the last one. Meaning the general wing, not the shadowy corridor. Most of it was photos of carvings and statues and shit like that. Max pointed at one with a grin - an ancient looking stone guy sat in a diner booth - apparently the 'Last Diner', before looking away and peering curiously at another one. Not sure if that was a pun or not. Probably, if Max liked it. Love that girl, but her sense of humour is- oh fuck! The stone guy moved! He fucking moved! I growl at him, and his head turns as he stops staring at Max and starts staring at me instead. I shiver a little, but at least he's on me and not her now.

We skitter hastily past him and up to another turn. The left corridor kept straight for awhile before disappearing off to the left. The right went straight and then stopped at another wall. The door there was red. "Hey, Maxie. Let's try over there. The Cat Bastard didn't give us decent directions," And I didn't think to ask "So, we gotta get nosy here."

Max nods. "Okay." She supports me over to the door and I push on it. It opens easily. Booyah. Go me and - aww. It's just a storage room. There's a bunch of crates straight outta Crash Bandicoot, a few actual statues, and a bunch more pictures on the wall. "Do you think the picture is in here?"

I shrug again - another pang of pain, fuckin' ow. "Could be. We'd better check, just in case."

So, she helps us in, and we head over to one of the crates. Didn't even need to spin-attack it - or use a crowbar- as the top comes right off. The box was entirely filled with dirty, uh... "Max?"

"Yes, Chloe?"

"What're these things called? They're the painter boards, right?"

She nods. "Yep. They're called Palettes. You put paints on them, mix paints on them. They're pretty cool. Makes you look like a real artiste." She puts her hand up the way everyone does when they do a shitty French accent. Fuck, I hope the French don't know about that. Mom and Dad wanna go to Paris some day and they do that shit too. If they do that when they get there, there's gonna be all sorts of shit going down.

"Good to know. Thanks Maxie, always a trove of useless, but interesting knowledge."

She beams, ducks her head as she blushes. I chuckle and keep looking for a picture of paramedics. Nope, nope, photo of a building, photo of three buildings, photo of a hot chick with a guitar, photo of a topless chick with a guitar - oh. I tilt my head. Damn, girl. Work that Stratocaster.

Max nudges me and coughs deliberately.

I shake my head and tear my eyes away from the picture. "Yeah, Maxie?" I flash her a roguish smirk.

She just chuckles and shakes her head fondly.

The rest of the room was pretty clear. "Our picture's not in here."

"Apparently not."

We turn to leave and the already low lights flicker out. Something rumbles behind us and my stomach drops into my feet. Which was kind of inconvenient, 'cause I was already having trouble using the damn things.

"Run." I say, and boy, do we fuckin' run. Even hobbling three-legged, we make pretty decent time. We slam the door shut behind us and keep going, only looking back when we get at least halfway down the opposite (left) corridor. The door looks like it's cracking as whatever was rumbling slams into it, over and over.

Yeah. We should probably run more.

We take the next left and go through another red door, this time ending up in a proper gallery space. There's a bunch of standing partition thingies with curtains on, and another door in the back. This one is green. I turn around and close the red door, gulping when it vanishes to be replaced by a weirdly empty display area. It looks like someone set up a place to hang something and then... well, didn't.

I mentally shrug. At least the storage room monster can't follow us anymore.

I turn back to look at the rest of the room. Max is practically quivering with anticipation under my arm. It's kinda painful, to be honest, but the look on her face is totally worth it. I let her drag me over to the nearest set of wall-curtains and she tries to open them with the annoying little cord to one side.

Nothing.

She gives a little sound of frustration and yanks at it again.

Still nothing.

I leave her to it, mentally, anyway, and start looking around the room. If the curtains don't open, there's gotta be something to trigger 'em, right? If Maxie wants to look under the curtains, then I'm gonna find that trigger. Unfortunately, this room has marked fuckin' lack of helpfully labelled big red buttons. Guess Jefferson read the Evil Overlord list.

Suddenly, I feel a slight tap on my shoulder - the one opposite Maxie. I twist my head around, trying to peer behind me without bothering Maxie, and spot a new thing. It's... a stick figure. Huh. "Did not expect to see one of those in a gallery."

Max hmms. "Hmm?"

"There's a stick figure. Looks like someone drew it on a wall with chalk or something."

She almost whirls around, completely unbalancing me and it's everything I can possibly do to actually stay upright as I cartwheel my arm like a lunatic and bend my spine in ways that it really shouldn't go. "What? Where? Wh- oh. There. Can we..?"

I let her drag me again, over to the picture of the stickman. "Heya Henry."

"What?"

"Nothing. What is it, anyway?"

She gives me an arch look. "It's a stick figure."

I groan. "Well, yeah, I knew _that._ I just thought that you'd know what it was called, what with your encyclopaedic knowledge of this dude's stuff."

She shrugs. "No idea. I don't think it's a picture of his."

The minute she says that, the lights flicker and a familiar blob of photo development fluid appears below the wall. We blink and it shapes into words. 'Want to play?'

Huh. "Do we wanna play?"

Max beams. "I think so!"

Again, almost instantly as she finishes talking, the lights flicker, and the blob changes again. 'Check the curtains. Come and find me!'

Max grins happily. "Hide and seek! I love hide and seek!" She did. And she was good at it, too. Came with being small and sneaky and too fucking patient. She could cram herself into the tiniest, spine-crushing space possible and stay there for hours without making a sound. Drove me, mom, and her parents crazy. Dad loved it. Lunatic.

So, off we went to one of the curtains. I had no idea why she'd picked this one, but hey. I trust Maxie. Admittedly though, when she opens the curtains and we find a photo of Max, suspended to a ceiling by a rope around her ankle and with blood pouring down her face from her slit throat, that trust does... wobble a little. It's a disturbing photo, to say the least.

Max gasps and buries her face into my chest. "Oh god, Chloe." She stutters out, the fear in her voice slightly muffled by my clothes.

"Don't worry about it, Maxie," I try "It's just this place fuckin' with us. You're okay, I'm awesome-" She giggles. "and everything is gonna be fine. Just, try again."

She nods, and we head over to another set of curtains. The cord for this one is on my side, so... "I got it."

I yank the cord, and get an eyeful. The photo is of a naked woman, leg perched on a bathtub, razor in hand. There's a moment of ogling before the woman shrieks, and I feel the flash of pain of a slap to the face before the curtains slam shut.

We both stare in silence for a second or two before moving the hell on.

The next set of curtains, mercifully, opens to show the stick figure. The thing looks like it's grinning in delight. There's another flicker from the lights and more development fluid appears below the stick figure. 'You win! Now turn around and collect your prize!'

We turn around.

I sigh in relief. The warriors of whatever was now on the wall, in the mysterious display area where the door used to be. Max beams. "We found it!"

"Yep. We sure did. Awesomesauce. Let's go... do whatever so I can get fixed up."

We hobble over to the portrait and look into it. It's not bad, I guess. Three paramedics were leaning over a body on a stretcher. One had his hands on the body's chest, the other two were looking at various medical doodads and whatchamacallits. "So... what do we do now?"

One of the paramedics suddenly looks up. "Diagnosis and condition?"

Wow. Dude had a ridiculously cool moustache.

"Uh..."

"Come on, come on, I've other patients to attend to!" I mean... fair point, dude.

Max points to my ankle. "My friend is hurt. Can you help her?"

The little paramedic skitters up to the edge of the frame and peeks over it like it was a cliff and he was trying to work out what was at the bottom. It's very wobbly. Weirdly, every time he wobbles forward, he almost seems to... pop out of the photo a little. Just a little though. No freaky cellophane lady-like shit around here. As I'm thinking, I realise he's giving me an arch look. "I can't move you, miss. You're going to have to come closer."

I blush and scoot forward - presenting my ankle for inspection, sah! - looking up at the dude to see his reaction.

After a few seconds, he nods decisively. "You need to water your plants."

I open my mouth to reply, then... wait. What?

"Our... plants?" Oh. "You mean the roses?"

His 'you're an utter fucking idiot' look would be the envy of schoolteachers everywhere. I root around in my pockets and pull out the blue rose. Max, after a second, pulls out her red one. "So, we water them? And that'll help my ankle? Where do we even get water?"

He points. "Yes. And you might want to try the vase in the corner."

The what? I follow his finger and turn to look. Okay... that wasn't there before. There's a vase, clear glass, thick and rounded at the bottom and gradually thinner towards the top. Why does shit keep appearing and disappearing around here? Haven't these idiots ever heard of object permanence? I turn back to thank the paramedic for the entirely fucking bizarre advice, but the photo, and the entire display area, had vanished. "Oh, come on!"

Max eyes me in confusion. "Chloe? What's wrong?"

I jab a finger accusingly at the empty space. "What's wrong? What's wrong?! Things keep appearing and disappearing and moving and vanishing and shit's just getting totally fucking weird! Why can't you make sense, gallery, huh?"

Max's confusion turns very solidly to amusement, and she smirks at me the entire length of my slightly deranged ramble-rant. Really, this had been frustrating the fuck outta me for a while now. Honestly, even I was astonished I'd made it this long. I didn't react well to... being confused. Max was just unflappable by anything other than people being mean to her, but I just punched those people, so she spent most of her life being unflapped by anything. I totally envied her that, but I'd take whatever confusion, frustration, or anything else I needed to to keep her happy.

Eventually though, my rant trails off and Max says "Feel better now?"

Weirdly, I did. "Yep. I feel great."

Max chuckled and dragged me over to the vase. "Go on. Put it in then."

"Phrasing."

Max gave an eyeroll that would've had every middle child in eyeshot glaring in envy, but since we were the only people in the room, it was up to me to react to it. "Wow, Max. So glad you appreciate my amazing jokes."

She glared. "Put your flower in the vase already, Chlo'."

I did hesitate. The last time I tried to drop the flower, it hurt like hell. I'm no rat, but pain was a pretty good motivator not to do something again, even for a badass like me. But hey, the photo said so and the mosaic seemed to trust it, so... I put it in.

Phrasing.

We both watch as the water level sinks rapidly and the flower starts to... grow. Where I couldn't tell the difference before, I now knew that petals had gone because they were literally regenerating in front of me as the flower drank it's fill. Totally. Freaking. Awesome.

I reach over to pick the flower out of the vase. The moment my hand touches it, I realise that my ankle doesn't hurt anymore. In fact, nothing hurts at all. Frankly, I've never felt better.

"Damn."

Max frowns up at me. "What? Did it not work?"

"No, it worked. It really, really worked. Just... kinda worried about why it worked, I guess." Which was fair enough, in my head. I mean, it was a flower that hurt when I put it down and healed me when I put it in water. If I was gonna freak out about something in this magical mysterious other world we seemed to have gotten tossed into, this was probably one of the fairer things. Even more than the appearing-disappearing tricks.

"Well, then don't be worried? So long as we keep finding water-"

"-and that's gonna be totally a cinch in a gallery" I mutter under my breath, interrupting.

She continues without acknowledging my interruption at all. "-and don't drop the flowers, we'll be fine, right?" She's very positive and upbeat about this, huh? Gotta admit, I don't get it at all, but eh. I'll live with it.

"Fine, alright then. We'd better get back to the Cat, dude's probably wondering what's taking us so long."

Max nods and gestures over to the green door still in the corner, away from everything else in the room. I was honestly surprised it hadn't disappeared too. Trapping us in here would be par for the fucking course with this place. "Shall we try the door?"

"Well," I drawl, "unless you got any other exits stashed in that camera bag of yours, we've got no other options. So, yeah. Why not?"

We walk over, open it, and step through. We're back in the shadowy corridor. The one with the grasping whatevers on the walls. I turn around to look through the door, and it's just the corridor to the storage room again. I groan. "This fucking place."

Max chuckles and opens her mouth to say something, but before she can speak a word, there's an ear-piercing screech of pain off in the distance. Max's face contorts in alarm. "That's the Cat!"

We turn and run toward the other door. Well, she does first. I follow her after a second of wondering why the hell we were running toward the terrified and painful-sounding screams of danger. Max was probably just concerned. Me, I was just trying to keep Maxie out of trouble. Or at the very least make sure I was getting into it right alongside her.


	3. Art Requires Sacrifice

Chapter III: Art Requires Sacrifice (POV) - Time

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

As one door closes, another door opens. This is just a short transitional one to introduce the new character and identify where they're going next. Also, to play around with our first big puzzle! Fun, huh? The people in the statements are all part of Jefferson's planned backstory, something this story is gonna go into throughout.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

We burst through the door, expecting something totally dramatic and terrifying, only to find... "Where's the Cat?"

Nothing. The wall the Cat had been on was, to put it politely, fucked. There were deep gouges in the wood, most of the pictures that made up the Cat's mosaic body were gone or ripped to pieces. Basically, it looks like someone had thrown an angry bear at it.

"Oh no! I think something happened to it, Chloe. Do you think there's something we could do?"

I look at the wall, and the fucking massive gouges in the wall. "Probably not, Max."

"Well, that's sad. I liked the Cat."

Weirdly, it kinda is. I spare a sec to remember Bongo, then get back to the biz of trying to escape this fucking madhouse alive. "Right, okay. So, we're healed, and there's no doors out anywhere else. That means there's gotta be something in here, right?

Max nods thoughtfully, considering my point, but I can still see a certain sadness in her eyes. Since her grandad, she never did deal well with losing people. "Right..."

"Split up and look for clues?" I suggest, in a probably vain attempt to distract her.

She doesn't grin like I hoped, but I do get a small smile of acknowledgement so I'm countin' it as a win. "Aye, Captain."

She goes left and I go right, and we start to poke around. The rest of the cat's room was still pretty barren, but I definitely picked up a whole lotta interesting things during my totally awesome and skilled investigation.

Okay, so maybe I didn't find shit, but I could've! The fact that neither of us found anything just meant there wasn't anything else to- "Hang on."

I walk over to the cat's wall and stand on my tiptoes. It's still a little high and difficult to see, but there's definitely a divot there. Pretty deep, though. Maybe it's even a duvet. That'd be cool. It's... about where the cat's head was. Somewhere on the lower side of it's face, I think. I wiggle my fingers in the gap and feel about to try get some idea of what it actually is.

It... seems to be shaped like a fish. Not even an interesting fish like a lionfish or a swordfish or a mola. Pretty sure this was a cod. Kinda disappointed, honestly. But I push in nonetheless. The fish duvet thing kind of... twisted? But like, inside itself?

Immediately, the room starts to shake. The last few pictures drop from the wall and the shitty hanging light shakes like a pendulum in a clocktower. In the middle of the previously smooth wall, a line suddenly appears, running all the way around the room. Then, to both of our surprise, the upper and lower parts of the room start to spin in opposite directions. The floor and ceiling both went with their parts of the wall and the spinning floor sent us both flying about like fucking ragdolls. I can feel the force of it pressing down on us, forcing us whatever fuckin' way it wants us to go. My cheeks start to smoosh and contort with the sheer pressure exerted on us by the wildly changing gravity in here.

We seemed to be floating fine though, like we were in space, and I laughed with the adrenaline of it all. This was uncomfortable as fuck, but it was kinda fun.

That was when Max suddenly screamed in pain as she slammed into one of the walls. I got the same experience, but managed to bite down on my screams. No need for both of us to deafen each other. We bounce off the walls we hit and start rocketing toward another. A lucky swing lets me grab onto Max and I wrap myself around her protectively. Every time we collided into something, I spun around so it'd hit me and not her. She keeps screaming, but at least it's not in pain anymore. I can live with that, even if - fuckin ow... - my ribs can't.

Eventually, after what feels like hours, the room stops spinning and we flop down onto the floor. I land with another crack that sends bolts of pain through my entire body. I wiggle, wincing slightly and feeling all of the bruises on my body. Nothing was broken, though. I pull myself up and scramble over to Max. "Heya Maxie. Fun, huh?"

She coughs, and shakes her head as emphatically and forcefully as I've ever seen her. She opens her mouth, probably to say something quippy, but gives up on it as a bad job - never argue against a badass bitch like me - and just groans. I try to be sympathetic, but something in the groan just makes me giggle. I couldn't help it. It felt like that one time we'd gone white-water rafting and the rapids had taken control. Whatever I wanted to do, it had control and the best I could do was just let it flow and follow along while trying not to drown in it. I flopped back to the ground - ow again - and just let myself laugh.

Max just stares at me like I'm insane - and maybe I am. Kinda weird to laugh after getting the shit beat out of you by a room.

Max's sober look kills my laughter pretty quick. "Do you think we killed the cat? Or made it so the cat can't come back?"

"I don't know, Max. This place is weird as fuck, I have no idea what we can do to it. I think whatever put those scratches in the wall killed it first, though."

"Oh." She pauses thoughtfully. "Good."

I pull myself up and stick out a hand to help her. When we're both on our feet, I walk toward the new door that seems to have appeared in the Cat's former wall. The other door was gone. "We should probably get moving. No point waitin' around here for something else to pop out of a picture and try to kill us, huh?"

Max giggles as she trails me over to the door. I ease it open and poke my head out. Another new room with pictures in. Oh, cool. That one's totally a moving face. The eyes were flicking about, staring hungrily around the room, and the tongue lolled out like it was a hyena. Fucking weird. Looks clear though, and I say so.

"Looks clear. Let's go."

Max nods, and we walk out into the new room. Forward was another corridor that lead to another t-turn, left was the face picture (ugly red colours on a black background, the thing looked like a monster a kid might see in the dark) and a few more frames I couldn't see, the right lead off into an empty corridor. Max skittered off to the right, ignoring the gross face and peering up into the next frame. She grins in fascination, so I follow her over. Upon seeing it, I tilt my head in confusion. "It's just a white picture. Dude, isn't that, like, boring? Why is it just white?"

Max flashes me a shit-eating grin, before mock-admonishing me with a sing-song "Chloe, you can't just ask a photo why it's white."

I scowl. I really hate that fucking movie. Max just smirks before turning back to the photo.

I leave her to it and go to poke around. The other photos on this row weren't anything remarkable. Just a few landscapes, some vaguely abstract crap, shit like that. So, I creep over to the forward corridor. Unfortunately, my chosen path takes me too close to the mouth and the tongue suddenly stretches out of the canvas toward me. I catch it just before it touches me and I dart back out of its reach. The face just laughs at me before going back to its search of the room.

So, I go around the face and look into the corridor. It looks clear, so I yell back to Max. "Come on, let's go check out the next bit."

Max nods and we both go through the corridor, stepping as carefully and as quietly as we can until...

"Oh dog..."

There were people, hanging from the ceiling. Max stares up at them in horror, both her hands going up to her mouth as her eyes go wide. "Chloe, they're... they're..."

I walk over and rest a hand on her shoulder, turning her into me with a tight hug. "It's okay, Max. There's nothing we can do for them. We just gotta keep doing, okay? The door is right over there, then we don't have to look at it anymore, I promise."

"You- you promise?"

"I promise, Max. Now, you think you can make it?"

She looks up at me, big, round, watery eyes, and nods hurriedly. I wipe a few of the tears off with my thumb and turn her around. "Okay, then. Let's go."

We hurry through: Max keeps her eyes low and on the ground while I guide her. We reach the door and- "Shit!" It's locked. There's some kind of combination thing on the door. Three rings, with weird symbols scrawled over them in that same icky development fluid. For a second, I'm tempted to try get it at random - I always was pretty lucky - but Max's little cries of distress broke my heart. God, I'm a fuckin' sap. I drag her across the corridor to the other direction and face her away from the bodies. She buries her head into me again and we go for another tight-as-fuck hug. When she stops crying, I let go and kneel a bit so we're at eye level. "You okay to keep going?"

She nods. "Yep. I'm okay. I can do this." She looks up at me. "We can do this, right?"

"We can totally do this."

We go through the other door and enter a eight-sided room. There's another door opposite us and each of the other six has a photo of a different person on. Three dudes, three chicks. Max points each of them out: "The one in the blue leotard is Nina, she's a ballet dancer that Jefferson patronised. Um. The woman in the white dress is Miranda, she was Jefferson's first wife. She disappeared one day. The woman with the tattoos and the neon blue hair in the red cheongsam-"

I interrupt "You know fashion stuff?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Chloe. I know fashion stuff. It's basically just a word for a Chinese dress, anyway. The woman wearing it is one of his first models in New York. Her name is Yui Anantasu, I think. I might be pronouncing her surname wrong." She continues with the list. "The man in the yellow shirt and orange pants is Jack Cameron. He's a reporter friend of Jefferson's. The man in the green was Jefferson's boyfriend after his wife went missing, he was a cop called... something Wilson? Edward, I think. The last guy in the tuxedo is called Morgan. I can't remember who he is. Maybe a student? They're all people in Jefferson's life who died."

We walk forward into the middle of the room and as our foot lands in the middle, the lights suddenly flicker and a bunch more scrawled development fluid messages appear. Max reads Nina's message first. "The one in yellow is an honest man. Times Square is the place to look! What does that mean?"

I take a quick look over them and groan. They're all a bunch of statements, some telling answers, the others telling whether the answers are right or not. A puzzle? Really? Fucking shit damn piece of jesus goddamned crap on a- I sigh. "It means we gotta work this shit out to get through the other door."

"Oh. Okay. How do we do that?"

I shrug. "It's one of those weird I knew that she knew that I knew that he knew things. Total bullshit, I know, but I think we gotta find out which one's telling the truth to solve a puzzle."

(AN1 for full statements)

"Okay, so. Yellow is honest. What's yellow say?"

"Jack. He's the reporter. He says that the woman in white, Miranda, is hiding something in Times Square."

"Times Square? What's in Times Square?"

"She taught at the technology institute somewhere near there, I think." Max shrugs. "You know I failed maps."

"Geography, Maxie. Geography. Not Maps." A thought pops into my head. "Does anyone else say anything about wossname in the white?"

"Miranda. She says she's hiding in Soho." She wafts a hand at the police dude, Wilson. "And Green says the wife is honest."

I pause. "So, we've got two who say the wife is hiding something in Times Square, and two who says she's honestly off in Soho, right?"

"Right." Max nods emphatically. "But we've got six portraits. And the other two don't talk about Miranda at all!"

"Okay..." Shit. I have no idea what to do now. "So, what do they say?"

"Um, Yui says Green is honest. That's Officer Wilson again. Morgan, the guy in the tux who's maybe be a student, says that she's resting in the East River."

Shit, um... I don't think that...

"Hmm. Well, more people agree that the wife is in Soho, right? Miranda, Yui, and Wilson all say that. Jack and Nina are the Times Square peeps, but nobody says anything about Morgan and he says she's in the East River." I share a puzzled fuck-it look with Max. "Odd one out?" She just nods. "Cool. So, Morgan's the right one."

Max walks over and starts to reach out to the photo. Considering what a shit run we've had touching photos, that action sends my heart up into my mouth and my stomach to my boots. I dash over, trying to stop her, but I get there too late and end up touching the picture just as she does. There's a flash out of nowhere and the room freezes, then explodes in blinding white.

As we blink the glare out of our eyes and start to be able to see again, everything has changed. It's night-time, and we're on a wooden jetty jutting out from an unfinished building. Weirdly, I'm also taller. There's a man next to me, I recognise him from one of the pictures. He's the cop, Wilson. He's not in uniform, though. He has hold of one end of a rug, I've got the other. The middle of the rug is soaked through with red. He looks up at me and grumbles. "You couldn'ta done it somewhere closer, could'ya?"

A deep, melodic voice responds "No, Wilson. I couldn't've. She didn't give me an option."

The officer scowls. "Well, thanks to your impatience, I gotta go spend the rest of the evenin' scrubbin' surveillance footage so your ass doesn't get caught."

The same voice quips, a smirk evident in it "It's not like you're going unrewarded, officer. You're getting a lot out of this too."

We stop right at the edge and with a one, two, three of exertion, we hurl the rug into the water. The cop turns to me and leans in for a kiss. I don't feel it, though. He pulls back with a smile. "I know, babe. I know."

The melodic voice says something vaguely sappy, but my attention was entirely grabbed by the sign on the building. It's three symbols in a row under a blue ink scrawled message that just says 'escape!'.

I blink as there's another blinding flash, and then I find myself back in the picture room. Max is stood next to me and our eyes meet. "What the hell was that?"

Max is almost bouncing in excitement. "Did you see it too? Jefferson was there! We were doing some kind of interior modelling. And I... I..."

Oh god. I think I was Jefferson. "You kissed him, huh?"

She lights up like a red Christmas tree. "H-how did you know?"

"Because I just got kissed by Wilson."

Her blush only gets worse as her eyes go wide. "You were Jefferson! Did you see the rug, too?"

"Yep."

"Wow." She blinks up at me. "So, what do you think that was?"

I shake my head. "I dunno, Max. But I got the code for the other door. We should probably get outta here."

We turn around and Max gasps in shock. The five pictures we didn't believe were all now armed and Morgan's picture is empty, but it's dripping with blood and had innumerable scratches and stab wounds in it. Even the messages changed. Now, they all said the same: 'Liar!'.

Max's terrified little whimpers as she shakes makes me determined and back on task again. Get out, and find somewhere safe. "Come on, Maxie. Let's get back out there. We can get through now."

I take her by the hand and gently drag her toward the other door. Just as we reach it, the other one slams open and a body flies in, shoving the door closed and pushing itself up against it to hold it shut.

It's a boy. Blonde, thin, maybe our age? He's wearing a blue jumper and a white collared shirt. Looks kinda preppy rich kid, honestly. Either way, he seems about as scared as Max. I stick up a hand. "Uh, hi!"

He jumps, then pushes back up against the door and eyes us nervously. There's something else there though. Excitement, maybe? Dunno. Either way, he's not trying to kill us yet. "You from the gallery too?"

He nods. "Y-yes. I am. Nathan."

"Chloe." I thumb to Max. "This is Max."

Max, getting over her anxiety, chirps "We're trying to get out of here. Do you want to come along?"

I think for a moment about maybe rewarning Max about the whole stranger-danger shit, but eh. "It's pretty fucked up here, dude. Totally dangerous shit around here. If you wanna come with, I guess that's okay."

Nathan nods and scurries over to us. "Do you have a rose too?"

He nods back, tapping his side. "Yeah. A yellow one."

"Cool. Uh, so don't drop it, okay?"

"Okay..?" He looks puzzled.

"It really fucking hurts if you do." I make sure to look him in the eye and to be as sincere as I can fucking manage. "It really, really hurts."

"Oh. Okay." He looks worried.

I clap a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine, dude. Just stick with us and we'll getcha out. Now, back to the room with all the hanging people in it!" I shout, pointing gallantly at the door.

Max squeaks in terror.

Shit.

[END OF ACT I]

* * *

AN1 - The statements are here.

Student Morgan (Tuxedo) - She's resting in the East River.

Wife Miranda (White) - I ran away to Soho.

Model Yui (Red) - Green is the only one who tells the truth.

Officer Wilson (Green) - The wife was an honest woman.

Reporter Jack (Yellow) - The woman in white is hiding something in Times Square.

Dancer Nina (Blue) - The one in yellow is an honest man. Times Square is the place to look!


End file.
